Strange sightings

I was at the gym last night and saw this familiar woman on the treadmill next to me. It took many awkward sideways glances to figure out who she was, and once I figured it out, I found myself feeling strangly uncomfortable. She was a former supervisor from a job I held (for a short time) in college. I had a few crappy jobs in college (didn't we all?) but this job was probably my least favorite (besides the babysitting gig I had with a church daycare...I got pink eye...enough said). Anyway, this *shitastic* job was with Sears Home Improvement. This business was housed in a big warehouse on the far northwest side of Lawrence. The location was ironically not terribly far from where we live now (we live in a more residential area, but it's not too far). I love our neighborhood, but I remember driving over to that general area of Lawrence in college and feeling like I was in another land, b/c, well, it wasn't downtown. When I was in college the only places that existed in my mind were either on campus or close to downtown or downtown. Now that makes me laugh, but I was stuck in my little bubble in college.

So, anyway...I saw this woman and had many funny and unfortunate memories of working there. Sears Home Improvement was a contracting call center. We were call center employees who wore head sets and were paid $6/hr to call people who had shown some interest in contracting work. The problem was that I could only work from about 4pm-9pm or 10pm every night b/c of class, so I always called people during or right around dinner time-the WORST time ever to get a call from a stupid call center. 9 times out of 10 the person on the other end of the phone was just pissed. I spent most of my time saying, "Well, sir, you did show some interest back on (insert date) in our services, so we were just following up..." And my boss was nasty...the woman I saw at the gym. I had to punch in a time card every time I showed up, left, took a 10 minute break. Most days I was literally about 1-2 minutes late, and I received "bad marks" every time I was over a second late. Not joking. There was no fudging around. So after 2 or 3 bad marks, I was called into my supervisor's office and she scolded me. I tried to tell her how ridiculous it was that I was getting in trouble for being 1 minute late when I really tried to make it on time, but she was just Little Miss Nasty about it. I know, those are the rules and she was just doing her job, and I could've pulled my tired butt off the couch and left a bit earlier, but back then it just made me mad. Looking back I realize that she was just handling the situation the best she knew how. She wasn't a nice person, per say, but she had to control a huge room full of mostly annoying college kids who were never on time. And there was a lot of turnover...go figure.

So...the next time I was scheduled for work I called in and quit. So bad of me. I called and talked to the floor manager, this nice-enough college-aged dude who put in enough time to get a promotion, and he said, "Oh, you're not coming in today?" to which I replied uncomfortably, "Uh, yeah, and then I'm never coming in again after that, either..." Why couldn't I just say "Hey, dude, I quit. This job is for the birds..." or something more direct like that? No, I had to get all awkward when I finally did it. But once I did it I never regretted it. I know we've all had crappy jobs during and/or after college, so this one probably isn't that big of a deal. But it was one of those jobs that made me feel really lonely, for the most part. I think it was the fact that we weren't allowed to talk to anyone else in the call center, I hated what I was doing (although there were some interesting calls, including one incoming call where a woman's dog was trapped in her house b/c the roof had fallen in and she needed Sears to come fix her roof...uh, call 911, sister, not Sears Home Improvement), and the fact that we got a 10 minute break and if we punched back in from our break more a second late we were in shitloads of trouble. With a capital T...

So, that's who I saw last night. After I saw her, I immediately ceased all sideways glances and hurried up my treadmill work. I then moved on to the exercise bike and never looked back. That's so stupid, but I was immediately thrown back in time about 12 years and it didn't feel good.

But all that experience at Sears Home Improvement just took me to the next fabulous level which was a hilarious retail job at the Lawrence Outlet Mall in the Corning Revere Store! Now that's a job with some fun stories...for another time. I'm sure Kelly could chime in with some awesome Wallet Works stories, too.

Til next time...over and out, people.

ek